Tuesday, October 12, 2004
I Want To Be A Farmer

All people,when young,are asked about their ambitions and what they'd like to be when they grew up.You had yours and I had mine.And these ambition doesn't always commensurate with our actual abilities.My first ambition was to be an astronaut,having seen spacemen do their spacewalks and thinking how cool it was must be to float in space,suspended in infinity.And then by Primary Three,such dreams were dashed when I acquired the essential accessory,a pair of spectacles.Astronauts don't wear spectacles.

So I then switched my ambition to being something very unusual.I wanted to be the humble bus driver.Yes,a bus driver.How many kids you know want to be a bus driver?If you ever come across one,please bring the poor kid to a psychiatrist.I'm sure the poor child needs help.Or that kid will end up like me,a civil servant.OMG,a fate no one wants to befall on any kid.My interest in being a bus driver stemmed from the fact that I thought buses were cool.Especially the double decker ones.That might sound weird in today's context but keep in mind,those were the early 80s.After a while,my interest in buses waned and so did my ambition to become a bus driver.I should qualify and say that I didn't want to be just any bus driver.I wanted to be the BEST bus driver ever.If there is such a thing.

Let me divert for a second and talk about the ambitions of modern kids and kids of my era.I think that in my age,kids were a lot more innocent.Our ambition was in terms of professions.An astronaut,a doctor,a nurse,a bus driver.You get the drift.It didn't matter whether the job was glamorous or not,had media attention or not.We just thought doing a certain particular thing is cool.I think kids nowadays are different.Ask about ambitions and you'd get singer,actors,movie stars and stuff like that.Even an ambition of being a writer can come from vastly different perspectives.A kid then might think he want to write the best stories any person can tell.Kids nowdays might be thinking of money and fame.Book signing sessions and book launches.This kind of stuff.The very reasons for the being of an ambition could be very different.

All these have nothing with wanting to be a farmer.But yes,nowadays,I want to be a farmer.As you can tell,my ambition is deterioriating all the time.From an astronaut to a bus driver and now a farmer.Ask me what my ambition is ten years from now and I'd probably answer cave-man.But in all actual fact,being a cave-man isn't all that bad right?As long as I have my cable TV,food delivery service,a good laptop and wireless internet connection.Being a cave-man doesn't mean I can't be a RICH cave-man,you know.Anyway,back to being a farmer...

I only wanted to be a farmer later in life...wow,sounds like I am already nearing the end of this life.But anyway,I want to be a fish farmer specifically.Living on a kelong.With a small speedboat to buy stuff when I need.And my usual trappings.Yes,name them.Cable TV,food delivery,a good laptop and wireless internet connection.Add to that,a mighty home entertianment system.That'd complete the picture.Being a fish farmer doesn't mean I can't be a RICH fish farmer,you know.And I don't just want to be any farmer,I want to be the BEST fish farmer ever.Now that's what you call...AMBITION.

The notion of being a fish farmer came to me after reading countless articles about how overfishing in the waters of this precious planet is fast dissipating the world's resources of marine life stocks.You often see these articles in Time amagzine showing a tiny fish on a large plate saying that "no,it's not that the plate is getting bigger but the fish is becoming smaller because they are not allowed the chnace to grow to full adult size before they are being harvested".Erm ok.I always thought the fish was small because they used an ikan bilis.I wonder how big a full-sized ikan bilis can get.Anybody can tell me that?

But anyway,you get my drift.Overfishing is decomating large volumes of marine food resources at an alarming rate.There is no chnace of self-renewal.Soon,we'd no longer have seafood.No garoupas,no pomfrets,no tunas,no mackerels,no swordfishes,no stingrays,no sardines.Woah,no sardines!I then set my mind to wanting to protect these fish stocks by farming them commercially which might prevent more overfishing.Ok,who's kidding more?My intentions are less altruistic than that.Let's face it,with dissimating fish stocks,farming and selling fish will make great money.And as an added bonus,I love seafood so I am essentially combining pleasure with business.Doesn't get better than that,I assure you.Ok,then again,maybe not.

Even then,setting out to be a fish farmer,doesn't mean I had to farm using a kelong,right?Right.I don't think large scale fish farming takes place in kelongs.Probably true.I am just indulging in my lifelong fascination with kelongs and life on one.I think it must be lovely to always be out at sea.To be almost at one with nature.All alone with no houses or people close.Just you and the sea.Just step out to the paltforms outside and you get loads of seabreeze.How cool is that?Of course,if you sleepwalk,there is also the possibility of drowning but well...don't live on a kelong if you sleepwalk.Actually I have sleptwalked once you know.Just once...But I can see danger signs popping up already.

Life as farmer is of course,no bed of roses.You gotta feed,clean nets,harvest...do stuff here and there.It's not that easy and is certainly tough physically.But I am don't think I am afraid of manual work.After all,guys do plenty of that for two and a half years of their life so it's no big deal really.If I am worried about hard labour,I can of course employ a few Banglas to do the hard work for me.While I shake my leg,playing Playstation and watching DVDs.And lest people say I am exploiting foreign talent,please be reminded that a Sunday Times article not too long ago said that Singaporeans are generally very kind and helpful to foreign workers.That we extend a warm and friendly hand to them and help them as and where possible.That we do not avoid or move away from them like the plague when they board MRTs or buses.That we'd happily sit beside them without giving dirty looks.So no,I will be the model employer to these Banglas as most Singaporeans are.No throwing them into drains and stuff like that.Yew...

Having said so much,in all truth,it's really all a pipe dream.Hah.Getting a kelong is no cheap venture,you know.And then you got to sink in all kinds of money on other stuff like infrastructure,stocks(what do you call the young of fishes?I can't remember),fish feed and whatever else one might require.Not cheap leh.And that does not even include my usual compulsory trappings I always must have.I have no money to do that yet lah.And you know I can't live without my trappings.It's like a fish living without water.Ok,there are fishes which can survive out of water but I am not talking about those at all.

Oh,let's see what kind of stuff I'd like to grow.Erm,I mean what kind of fish or seafood,I mean marine life,I'd like to grow.The type of stuff I grow will definitely have to be congruent with what I like to eat.So I can only grow garoupas,pomfrets,crabs and clams,oysters,lobsters and ikan bilis.Can someone tell me what's the market price for ikan bilis?But if I grow ikan bilis,they probably escape through the nets and I can't allow that.What else can I possibly grow...???I can't grow sowrdfishes or sharks right?They'd gnaw through the net.Farmed tunas are too common a commodity and anyway,I don't eat too much tuna.Of course,there is also salmon but in tropical waters???Wait,can we possibly eat Nemo???

So well,I have my plans laid out for the long term now.I want to be the BEST fish farmer in the world,with the BEST Banglas working for me and producing the BEST marine food out there.That could be a real good vision for the company and a good mission statement as well.To be a happy family of banglas(and a Chinese)working to solve the world's problem of decimated fish resources.How cool is that?Extremely cool in my book.In fact,suddenly I think the vision is so altruistic,I should get a Nobel Prize for it.Or at least a UN commendation for my efforts to preserve,protect and further the cause of humanity.Or is it more like preserve,protect and further the cause of seafood?Erm,I mean marine life.Nemo owes me one.

A final word:Anybody wanna invest???Good money leh...I am sure it would be a most wise investment.But if it ever turns out that we lose money and go bankrupt,at least you can say your money is sleeping with the fishes.Either that or you can sleep with the fishes as well.Whatever that means.